MARKET SHARE BY ARTHUR GREENWALD
TVNewsCheck, Jun 8 2009, 11:01 AM ET
Some of the largest stations and station groups are cutting staff and turning newsrooms into cross-platform "content centers." The ostensible purpose is to bolster the declining broadcast business by expanding onto the Web. It's the smart thing to do. But if TV stations think they're going to dominate Web advertising just by showing up, they should think again.
Estimated at $13-billion-and-growing, the local online media marketplace is wide open. TV stations are competing not only with newspapers, but also with radio stations, yellow pages publishers, other directory publishers, online search and a host of scrappy startups. And these local rivals recognize no boundaries. They intend to compete on all fronts, including video.
This is the first in a series of Market Share columns to examine the convergence of local media online. We'll start with DMA 42, Las Vegas, where the family-owned Greenspun Corp. has been making media waves for years. Greenspun's Pulitzer Prize-winning Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Weekly both run award-winning Web sites that have long showcased original video segments. And starting June 15, they'll be joined by 702.TV, a Vegas-centric video venture — both online and on the air.
"The television version of 702.TV is reverse engineered from our Web site," says Greenspun Media President and Executive Editor Rob Curley. The half-hour show aired previews last week on KTUD, a Class A station that reaches the entire market thanks to widespread cable carriage. It also offers an aggressive lineup of syndicated fare (Oprah, Family Guy, Frasier, and next fall, The Office). 702.TV is composed of "two-to-four -minute Web videos that have to be cut down to 90 seconds for TV," says Curley
"702.TV has great production values and it's hyperlocal," says KTUD General Manager Steve Carlson, who co-owns the station with Greenspun. "We'll launch it as a weekly show, but soon it will be on twice a week and by mid-July five nights a week at 5:30, leading into Family Guy."
Although the hyperlocal format affords rich opportunities for advertorial-style commercial tie-ins, Carlson expects KTUD to derive revenue primarily from "traditional 30-second spots."
Visitors to 702.TV, the Web site, can view the broadcast version, but more likely they'll cherry pick among the segments, all carefully meta-tagged for future search and retrieval. The Web site will also feature talent blogs, user-generated content and easy links to Greenspun's ever-expanding database of all things Vegas. And freed of broadcast time constraints, the Web version of 702.TV will be especially friendly to creative advertorial partnerships, especially those that add entertainment value.
702.TV, takes its name from the Las Vegas area code and its style from the Las Vegas Weekly's Web site, where the most popular blogger is a local stripper — as opposed to lasvegassun.com, which Curley describes as a print-centric "Web site for people who love newspapers."
While 702.TV is focused on fun, its mandate is serious. Las Vegas Sun President and Editor Brian Greenspun challenged the Greenspun Media staff to "come up with a way to inform people who don't even know they need to be informed," Curley says. Viewer engagement is the top priority.
"It's even easier to click away from a Web site than to change a channel," says 702.TV Executive Producer Chris DeFranco, "Every video package has to hook user attention right off the top."
A veteran of Las Vegas news and ad production at Landmark's KLAS, DeFranco cites a recent profile of a colorful local bartender that starts by explaining why his most popular drink is called "ass juice." And opening night of the MGM Grand's Crazy Horse Paris Review was shot in all its topless glory — with the naughty bits covered over with the 702.TV logo.
Obviously, this isn't news as defined by the RTNDA, which Curley freely admits. "We're not set up to do exposés.Our concept was always about how do we entertain and inform people," says Curley.
702.TV "only covers hard or breaking news when the Las Vegas Sun asks us to" — for example, the recent flap over President Obama's reluctance to meet with Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, says DeFranco.
"We told the story with animation and graphics and cartoon captions in the style of (Comedy Central's) Daily Show,"
While decidedly light in tone, 702.TV follows a fairly traditional format with short catchy lifestyle pieces at the top and bottom, heavy on Las Vegas' never-ending stream of visiting celebrities. In the middle, there's a three-to-four minute sports-heavy local news segment, usually a breezy chat between co-host Denise Spidle and a Las Vegas Sun reporter.
Other hosts include entertainment reporter Emily Gimmel and two sports reporters, Christine Killimayer and Alex Adeyanju, all of whom routinely shoot and edit their own stories. "We also have shooter-editors
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